The Vortex-Induced Vibration （VIV） displacements are determined from both the measured accelerations and strains in a series of VIV experiments. Based on the results, the forces in the longitudinal, transversal and tangential directions are estimated by using the finite element method with and without considering the interactions between adjacent elements. The numerical simulation indicates that the method considering the interactions performs better in the estimation of the forces. The component of the transversal force in phase with the acceleration is associated with the added mass coefficient. The estimated added mass coefficients take abnormally high values at the locations where the displacements are small. An improved formula based on the L＇Hospital＇s rule is pro- posed to deal with this problem. The results show the advantage of this formula in estimating the added mass coefficients at the loca- tions with small VIV displacements.
The flow past a finite circular cylinder with a height-to-diameter ratio of 1.5 and an infinite circular cylinder of the same diameter at a Reynolds number Re= 3 900 is investigated using the large eddy simulation（LES）. The objective of the present study is to explore the differences of the flow mechanisms between the finite and infinite circular cylinders. It is shown that the free end of the finite circular cylinders affects the wake region significantly. The mean drag coefficient and the fluctuating lift coefficient of the finite circular cylinder are smaller than those of the infinite circular cylinder. The three-dimensional separation and the separated shear layer instability of the finite circular cylinder can obviously be observed. The existence of an arch vortex in the average flow downstream of the free end is demonstrated.
